Visibility analysis and landscape evaluation in Martin river cultural park (Aragon, Spain) integrating biophysical and visual units

Abstract

The European Landscape Convention (ELC) has encouraged affiliated countries to develop several assessment methodologies to facilitate land management in an effort to develop compatible, integrative assessment techniques that can be applied in diverse geographic settings. Here we begin to address the question of how to develop comprehensive landscape assessments based on the criteria of the ELC by integrating landscape studies using biophysical and visual characteristics. We assessed visibility, quality, and fragility to determine aptitude for protection based on both biophysical and visual landscape units. We selected the Martin River Cultural Park (Aragon, Spain) as a study area because it is recognized as a site of cultural and geomorphological importance, it is situated in a signatory country to the ELC, but has not been subject to any landscape assessment. The resulting maps of aptitude for protection can be used to prioritize landscapes for protection based on their levels of quality and fragility.

The Role of Geographical Landscape Studies for Sustainable Territorial Planning

“…The valuation of these qualities is made for every VLU, so that these VLUs can constitute landscape management units [96,98,100]. [99].…”

“…This suggests that physical-geographical maps may be more appropriate in areas with a certain level of landscape-level heterogeneity, and yield less clear results in areas which do not have those characteristics. The cartographic mapping of the Martin River at a 1:25,000 [100] scale also indicated another factor with implications for sustainable land management. The high variability of the resulting landscape units (7.3 km 2 to 0.1 km 2 ) were difficult to operationalise in management.…”

“…For this reason, Shaw and Olfield (2007) [50] define these types of methodologies as technocentric. However, as we acknowledge, new works are integrating Russian postulates with human variables (e.g., Franch-Pardo et al, 2017) [100]. These circumstances will allow us to expand the application of these postulates to issues pertaining to sustainability (Huggett and Perkins, 2004 cited in Shaw and Olfield, 2007) [50].…”

“…In Aragon, Spain, the method has been successfully used to elaborate a series of "Landscape Maps" for management. These maps strictly observe article two of the European Landscape Convention, related to its functional scope, which states that this Convention applies to the entire territory of the Parties and covers natural, rural, urban, and peri-urban areas [100]. Thus, it applies to landscapes that may be considered valuable for sustaining biodiversity as well as heavily transformed or ecologically depleted landscapes [65].…”

Using Historical Maps within a GIS to Analyze Two Centuries of Rural Landscape Changes in Southern Italy

“…i.e., for planning purpose since it can be used to identify which biophysical units are in greater need of protection and where such protection is more likely to be effective, and because it provides a novel methodological basis for the analysis of visual aspects in biophysical units [8,9]. During the past two decades, especially in the Mediterranean Basin, three phenomena are re-drawing the configuration of rural areas: agricultural mechanization, the accelerating demise of traditional rural life, and an increase in the mobility of individuals [10].…”